ITALIAN DANCES
Past are the splendid pageants of the Medici, nor do the floors of
Castel San Angelo remember the caress of the winged feet of choral
dancers. The classic ballet, heir of the dances and masques of courts,
preserves their stately charm; while their choreographic wit lives on in
dances that are at once their ancestors and their survivors. An
intermediate generation of dances represented the day of a society
cultivated to artificiality. The dances of the people, on the contrary,
are rooted in the soil and cared for by wholesome tradition. Including,
as they do, many of the steps from which the ballet was derived, there
is material for interesting speculation in their continued vigour.
In the _Forlana_ of Venice, with its old-fashioned steps, is found a
delicate mimetic synopsis of the world-old tale of the young wife, the
elderly husband, and the dashing interloper; the theme immortalised by
the pen of Boccaccio, in his collection of the stories that passed the
time during the ten days when the court exiled itself in the hills to
avoid a pestilence in Florence. The accompanying illustrations of the
dance have the benefit of the knowledge of two graduates of the academy
of la Scala, both children of teachers in that institution: Madame
Saracco-Brignole and Stephen Mascagni. Both are enthusiastic performers
of their country’s character dances; Mascagni, indeed, with his wife as
[Illustration: “LA TARANTELLA”
Opening of the dance
A poor collection
They gamble for it: the game _La Morra_
She wins
He wins
]
[Illustration: “LA TARANTELLA”
An _arabesque_
Finish of a phrase
A typical moment
Finish of a phrase
]
partner, makes the _Tarantella_ an important feature of his repertoire.
The trio in _la Forlana_ was completed with the assistance of Mlle.
Louise La Gai, as Columbina, Madame Saracco-Brignole and Sr. Mascagni
representing Doctor Pantalone and Harlequin, respectively, completing
the little cast.
As a stock character in other pantomimes and farces, Doctor Pantalone’s
characteristics, both mental and physical, are so clearly defined that
he has the reality of an acquaintance. In brief, he represents
self-sureness and self-importance, with a weakness of revealing complete
misinformation through indulgence in a habit of correcting the
statements of others. Light-headed Columbina and mischief-making
Harlequin are their familiar selves. The _Forlana_ is a composition
essentially of tableaux, with steps of the dance serving to lead from
one picture to another.
Harlequin’s freedom with Columbina is resented by the elderly husband,
who threatens the intruder with a cane. The frivolous young people dance
away, after a mock-heroic pretence by Harlequin of protecting his
inamorata from her husband. They begin a series of groups made to
tantalise the dotard, whose possession of the young woman has clearly
ceased to exist. Harlequin embraces her, gazes into her eyes, raises her
to his shoulder, kisses her, and is otherwise familiar, while Pantalone
storms and pleads. Perching aloft with her partner’s support in the
various ways known to dancers of an acrobatic genius, Columbina reaches
out to her spouse the tip of a finger, in smiling sarcasm. Pantalone
later is reduced to kissing the little foot that from time to time kicks
upward as the lovers play. When at length even that is the occasion of a
dignified protest from Harlequin, the defeated one withdraws from an
unequal competition and gives the couple his blessing.
Pantalone, apart from his relation to the _Forlana_, is one of a group
of characters attached to the various Italian states as allegorical
representatives. To Sardinia, for instance, pertains a soldierly looking
youth called Maschara Sarda. Bologna has its Doctor Balanzone; Florence,
Stenterello; Rome, Rugantino; Naples, Pulcinella--and this is to
enumerate only a few out of a number slightly in excess of the number of
states. These mythical beings are neither heroes nor caricatures, nor
are they supposed at all to portray the qualities typical of the
population they represent. Their associations seem to be without
underlying significance, but they are none the less indissoluble in the
mind of the Italian. Those who have most cause to love them are the
writers of popular comedies; the simple device of putting a Balanzone or
a Rugantino among the characters of the play makes possible a direct
expression of ideas purporting to be those of the state itself. Such
lines, regardless of the literary tone of the play, are customarily
delivered in the local dialect of the region represented.
It is the _Tarantella_ that the world at large accepts as Italy’s
national dance; and rightly enough, since there is none whose popularity
is more nearly general through the land. It is rather identified with
Naples. There it is said to be the amusement that the younger working
people think of first, when leisure allows the thought of any amusement
at all; but it is very popular, too, through the South.
It is a breezy, animated dance, varied with pantomime not very profound,
to be sure, but at least merry
[Illustration: “LA TARANTELLA”
Opening of the dance
A turn back-to-back
A pause after rapid foot-work
]
[Illustration: “LA FORLANA”
Mme. Elise Saracco-Brignole, Mlle. Louise La Gai, and Sr. Stephen
Mascagni
Doctor Pantalone patronized; defied; pleads; accepts the inevitable and
is ridiculed
To face page 159]
with character. The mimetic action concerns the varying luck of _la
morra_, that game that consists in guessing at the number of fingers
open on the opponent’s suddenly revealed hand; perhaps the only gambling
game for which every one is born with full equipment of implements. To a
votary, every glance at his own five fingers must seem a temptation to
seek a game. For whatever reason, it seems to be a necessary element in
the life of the Italian labourer. The moment of the _Tarantella_ given
over to _la morra_ is, as it were, an acknowledgment of its place among
the people’s recreations.
As castanets are to the dances of Spain, the tambourine is to those of
Italy. Like castanets, the tambourine produces an amazing variety of
tones when handled by an expert. The effect its jovial emphasis of tempo
has on the enthusiasm of dancer and spectator need not be dwelt upon;
again sobriety succumbs before rhythm’s twofold attack on eye and ear
together. Vivacity is insistent, too, in the colours of the Neapolitan
costume. The tambourine is dressed in ribbons, characteristically the
national red, white, and stinging green. Stripes as brilliant as caprice
may suggest adorn the girl’s head-dress, apron and skirt. Nor must her
more substantial finery be forgotten; until a responsible age is
attained by children of her own, she is guardian of an accumulating
collection of necklaces and earrings, bracelets and rings that are as a
family symbol of respectability. Just as in other nations the inherited
table silver is brought out to grace occasions of rejoicing, the
Neapolitan young woman on like occasion exhibits gold, silver and gay
red coral in adornment of her person--adding much to the sparkle of the
_Tarantella_.
The boy (in these and the pictures of _la Ciociara_ represented by Mlle.
La Gai) has a necktie as red as dyes will yield, and a long fisherman’s
cap of the same colour. It is Italian stage tradition, by the way, that
the Neapolitan fisher boy’s trouser-legs should be rolled up to slightly
different heights.
The dance itself is full of pretty groups, well spiced with moods. The
steps are happily varied and well composed. There are many turns, the
boy frequently assisting with the familiar spiral twist of the girl’s
upraised hands--a device that, with any execution back of it, always
produces a pleasant effect. The turns also are highly enhanced in value
when, as they frequently do, they terminate so as to bring the dancers
into an effective embrace. Preparation for a _pirouette_ by both dancers
is utilised, at one point, as a pretext for some delightfully grotesque
poses.
It is a dance worthy of study and performance by artists, and of the
enthusiasm of appreciators of good work. In _Corinne_ occurs a passage
reflecting its impression on Madame de Staël. The following selections
seem most suggestive of the effect produced: “ ... beating the air with
her tambourine--in all her movements showing a grace, a lissomeness, a
blending of modesty and _abandon_, which gave the spectator some idea of
the power exercised over the imagination by the Indian dancing-girls,
when they are, so to speak, poets in the dance, expressing varied
feelings by characteristic steps and picturesque attitudes. Corinne was
so well acquainted with the different attitudes which painters and
sculptors have depicted, that by a slight movement of her arms, holding
the tambourine sometimes above her head, sometimes in front of her,
while the other hand ran over the
[Illustration: “LA CIOCIARA”
Opening promenade (1, 2)--End of promenade (3)--He has “made eyes” at a
spectator (4)--Opening of dance (second movement) (5)
To face page 160]
[Illustration: “LA CIOCIARA”
Rustic affection
Again caught in perfidy
Tries to make amends
Without success
Removed from temptation
To face page 161
]
bells with incredible swiftness, she would recall the dancing girls of
Herculaneum, and present before the eye of the painter or artist one
idea after another in swift succession. It was not French dancing, so
remarkable for the elegance and difficulty of its steps; it was a talent
much more closely related to imagination and feeling. The mood was
expressed alternately by exactness or softness of movement. Corinne,
dancing, made the onlookers share her feelings, just as if she were
improvising, playing the lyre, or designing figures; every motion was to
her as expressive as spoken language.”
The similarity between the words _Tarantella_, and “tarantula,” a large
and poisonous spider, causes endless speculation to the end of
establishing a more than etymological relation between the two. One
author seriously affirms that the dance is a standard rural remedy for
the bite of the insect, the energetic movement starting a perspiration
that relieves the system of poison. Various German physicians have
written reports on the subject, generally ending with a statement that
the said antidote for poison is of doubtful efficacy! Approaching the
subject from another angle, the word _tarantismos_ is discovered: a
species of hysteria common in Calabria and Apulia, and (by etymology)
attributed to the bites of tarantulas to be found in those parts. But
along comes another learned person who finds that _tarantismos_ is not
due to tarantula bites, but to certain molluscs that Calabrians and
Apulians customarily include in their food régime! He harks back to a
certain dancing mania that was more or less epidemic in Europe during a
period of the Middle Ages, a hysterical condition found curable by
violent dancing. Whence he induces that the _Tarantella_ derives its
name from _tarantismos_, and that it originated as a cure for
neurasthenia. Still another finds that the ailment causes hysterical
movements, “similar to dancing!” and flatters the _Tarantella_ with this
spasmodic origin. Again, a grave experimenter finds that tarantulas,
placed on floats in water so that they will be disinclined to run away,
will move their feet in time to music. He does not ask us to infer from
this that the steps of the dance were so originated and composed, but in
the cause of general joyousness he might have, and that without much
damage to the accumulated erudition on the subject.
All the Latin countries, no less than Scotland and Ireland, have their
_Jig_. In Italy, as elsewhere, it is a composition of rapid clog and
shuffle steps. More than most Occidental countries Italy has a lingering
fondness for pantomime; doubtless as a heritage from the theatre of
Rome, and increased through centuries of political intrigue that
sometimes made the spoken word inadvisable. Like the _Forlana_, _la
Ciociara_ of Romagna is an example of choreographic pantomime carried to
a high pitch of narrative quality. It represents a heavy-footed shepherd
and his wife, and their unpaid efforts to collect coins for music and
dancing during their visit to the village.
After a little promenade to the music of the pipe, or _piffara_, that
has descended unchanged from the days of the shepherds on the slope of
Mount Ida, and the tambourine of equally venerable age, the tambourine
is passed before an imaginary circle of auditors. The imaginary coins
failing to come forth, the couple impulsively decide to dance anyway,
for their own amusement. The dance proper is of the flowing style of the
_Tarantella_, but includes only the simpler steps. An important
contribution to the amusing character of the performance is a bit of
by-play that begins after the work has apparently terminated: the
shepherd, oaf though he is, expresses an interest in a pretty face in
the audience, and even a belief that his interest is reciprocated. He is
roundly scolded by his wife, soothes her feelings, and at last retires
under a not misplaced surveillance.
The _Saltarello_, an old and lively step-dance identified with Rome, and
including several steps of the _Tarantella_, completes the list of
popular dances for which Italy is famous. Other names there are in
abundance, but of dances identified with their localities. _La
Siciliana_ is a delicate but insufficiently varied product of the island
from which it has its name. Messina has a pantomimic dance known as _la
Ruggera_; Florence its _Trescona_, and so on indefinitely. Of these,
such as have any choreographic interest are said to owe it to the
_Tarantella_. Of many the interest is chiefly historical, since they are
woven into one tissue with old songs and old legends. Poetic and
altogether fascinating as such compositions frequently are, however,
their prevailing lack of the essential qualities of dancing makes
discussion of them inappropriate to a book on that subject. On the other
hand, the highly characteristic flavour of the music and the words of
their accompanying songs makes them a fascinating study under the heads
of folk-lore and folk-music, in which connection they are the subject of
several writings of great interest.